


Tangles

by Kirkwallgirl



Series: Freckles and Feathers [7]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Custom Male Hawke, Fluff, Haircuts, Illustrated, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 05:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8389030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirkwallgirl/pseuds/Kirkwallgirl
Summary: Hawke tangles with nature (quite literally) and ends up needing help getting it out of his hair (also literally). Anders tries not to laugh.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet takes place about a year or two after DA2, at Jay Hawke and Anders' little hideaway farm on the Frostbacks. 
> 
> You can see more of Jay Hawke [HERE.](http://kirkwallgirl.tumblr.com/tagged/jayden+hawke)
> 
> Illustration by yours' truly. ^u^

There was a knock on the door when Anders was preparing the sauna, and it made him flinch and his chest tighten. Hawke didn’t usually bother with knocking but it _was_  Hawke’s voice that spoke through the door.

“Anders? I have a little problem…” Hawke sounded shaken, a little desperate, and Anders’ heart skipped.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, stepping to the door, but when he tried to open it, he found that Hawke pushed back against it from the other side. He rattled the door in confusion, heart climbing into his throat. “Jay? What–”

“You can’t laugh, okay?” Hawke said, and Anders was even more bewildered than before, and not any less worried.

“What?”

“Just. Don’t laugh.” The weight against the door retreated, and Anders followed it out into the sunny late evening - and laughed. He felt bad about laughing immediately but couldn’t stop so he walked over to Hawke, cupped his face, and pressed their foreheads together for a moment before turning his attention to Hawke’s problem - a gnarled branch - fir, pine, whatever - that was desperately tangled in a red mess of hair.

“Oh Jay. What did you _do_?”

Hawke’s frown turned into a pout.

“You’re laughing,” he whined, shaking himself in frustration, and winced when the movement made the branch pull on his hair. “ _Owwwww_.Ahhh, please just. _Help me_. I tried to get it out but I just made it worse…”

“I’m _not_ laughing,” Anders said, trying to swallow another chuckle. “But how-”

“I was chopping firewood and threw some garbage branches into the garbage branch heap,” Hawke said, “and I stepped onto a root or something when I turned and my ankle twisted and I fell into the pile, you know, downhill? I-”

“You  _fell_? Are you okay? Does the ankle hurt?”

“ _I’m not okay,_   _Anders_ ,I have a branch that’s full of sticky sap stuck in my hair,” Hawke said, clearly trying to sound patient and failing. “The ankle’s no worse than last time it did this and maybe I scratched my back a litte-”

Anders immediately circled him and slipped his hands under his shirt, pulling it up and out of the way. There was a scratch on Hawke’s back that was bleeding, and some patches of broken skin (and a hole in the shirt that Anders was fairly sure was one of the new ones), and he _would_  definitely bruise, there were some blooms of purple already spreading on his skin.

Hawke turned and pushed his hands away.

“It’s all right, _please,_  I just want _this_ out of my hair. I’m okay.”

“You’re _bleeding_ , love,” Anders said. “And last time your ankle gave you had torn a tendon, so I _am_  going to look at those first. But we’ll get the branch out, don’t worry.”

Hawke sat down on the sauna step meekly enough and waited while Anders quickly cleaned and healed the scraches on his back. Healing the ankle took a little longer - Hawke winced immediately when Anders made to pull out his shoe, and they both knew it felt worse than he had been willing to admit.

The biggest problem, however, really _was_  the branch. Anders spent almost twenty minutes pulling and detangling and picking at the hair. He broke the branch into smaller and smaller bits and pulled them out when he could, but some were just so stuck in the sap and rough bark that there was nothing to be done about them. It seemed like everything he did to help in one area caused more problems elsewhere. The branch, Hawke’s hair, and Anders’ fingers were all sticky with sap, which didn’t help.

“You _had_  to fall onto the sappiest branch you could find,” Anders grumbled, frustrated, and let the hair fall onto Hawke’s back. “I’ll start heating the sauna oven before my fingers start cramping. You _sit_ , and let that ankle rest. I know I fixed the tendon and it doesn’t hurt right now, _but it still needs rest_. We’ll get the branch out, still. Somehow.”

When he returned, it was with a worried expression, a basin of water, combs, and the shears they used for cutting hair. Hawke took one look at them, and a panicked expression flashed over his face - but only for a moment. Instead of fighting, Hawke seemed to accept defeat without a fight. That was a relief at least.

“That bad, huh?” he said. Anders gave him a sad smile and sat down next to him.

“Yeah. We’ll never get the sap out and there’s still bits of branch stuck in there. I’m sorry, love.”

Hawke just sighed, and his shoulders slumped.

“I guess I knew from the moment I realized the branch was that sappy, I just didn’t want to– Just. Spare what you can, yeah?”

“Don’t worry.”

Hawke whined at the first clip of the shears and the small ripping sound they made when they cut through the hair, but after that he let Anders work in silence for a while. Smoke billowed from the open hatches in the sauna walls behind them.

“Do you remember the last time we had to do this?” Hawke asked at length and Anders hummed, brushing aside some hair to reveal the nape of Hawke’s neck.

“Of course I do,” he said, running his thumb fondly over the pale scarring where a glowing slime that had ambushed Hawke in the Deep Roads during Bartrand’s expedition had made contact with skin. “We had to cut slime out of your hair. It was very dramatic.”

“Don’t make fun! The hair saved my life!” Hawke laughed himself, though, and shook his head a little before he remembered himself and the shears in Anders’ hand. Anders kissed his neck before going back to work.

“It really did,” he agreed, remembering all the other times he’d seen glowing slime attack. It had never been pretty.

***

Later, when the sauna was hot and they were both clean and their hands smelled faintly of sap but were no longer covered in it, they sat together in the gentle heat, soft and sleepy. Hawke’s arm and head rested on Anders’ lap, and Anders fingers played in his hair, combing through it, pulling gently. 

“Do you still love me now that my hair is ruined?” Hawke muttered without opening his eyes. Anders hummed in agreement and leaned down to peck an awkwardly angled kiss on Hawke’s shoulder. He thought about the years after the expedition when Hawke had made it a habit to come down to the clinic almost every day and he had started his slow, hesitant falling into love. He thought about the way Hawke had shaken the hair out of his face when it was still too short to be tied back at all, or the way he had run his fingers through it to try and tame it, and about how it had always tumbled back and made Hawke huff or laugh. About how distracting and exciting it had become, somehow, to catch glimpses of Hawke’s neck and the line of his shoulders until the hair had grown long enough to hide them again. About how often he’d wanted to sink his fingers into the red curls just to see if they’d feel like he’d imagined. Like they felt now.

“Of course I do.”

“Good. Because I’m going to be sad about it for a while and I’ll need you to remind me.”

Anders laughed and pulled at Hawke a little to make him move.

“You vain silly man. Come here.”

Hawke crawled between Anders’ thighs and leaned against his chest with a pleasant wordless sound. Anders sunk his fingers into Hawke’s hair again and hugged him close. He pecked a kiss on top of Hawke’s head.

“Your hair is beautiful. I love you.”

Hawke made a thankful little noise and snuggled his face closer, pressed his nose against Anders’ skin. Anders could feel his smile even before Hawke pulled back to show it.

“Thank you,” Hawke said and pulled Anders down to a warm kiss.

 


End file.
